WinXP Install Problem

Hello, I have been trying to install WinXP from scratch (clean install) . I had Win98 on a 6GB partition but decided to try out XP. I made a boot disk, rebooted, ran fdisk off bootdisk, deleted ALL partitions, created new 6GB partition as primary, made it active, got out of fdisk, rebooted with bootdisk still inside, ran format c:, no label, took bootdisk out, put in WinXP CD, rebooted, pressed any key to boot off of CD, Windows XP setup screen came up, waited till all things were loaded off CD, got to where it asks to press ENTER to start installing XP, pressed F8 to agree to EULA,

NOW:
select partition where XP is to be installed: I select C: by pressing Enter - next screen I see is an error screen:

An error occurred while Setup was updating partition information on: 39261MB Disk 0 at ID 0 on bus 0 on atapi [MBR]

Setup cannot continue. Press F3 to quit.

Thats it. Can anyone suggest a solution to this? Anyone ever familiar with this error? Could it have something to do with a previous Linux installation on the drive? Any ideas are welcome. Any solutions are more than welcome
Thanks a lot
NewXP

 

Hi new..

Did you install the system files onto your active partition?

This is the command that you can use:

Format C: /S

I don't know if this is your problem, but you were pretty speciic in the details and did not show the "/S" in your comments.

Good luck

Hog

 

Using the setup CD, delete all partitions, set up new ones and format. You don't need fdisk.

 

Windows XP has a 32 GB limit if using FAT32 and it looks like you are trying to install it on disk exceeding the limit.

Partition the disk into 2 ensuring your boot partition (XP) is less than 32 GB and then try re-installing from the CD.

 

Try booting to your floppy again and at the prompt, fdisk /mbr hit Enter.

Re-boot and try the install now.

 

Abraxas - he mentioned a previous Linux install. Therefore he may well have a copy of (or piece of) LILO sitting in the sector Windows wants for the MBR.

NewXP - I suggest you run fdisk /mbr to clean out any remaining Linux traces and give you a new master boot record and then boot with the XP install disk. If you allow, the XP setup will partition and format for you so no need to do it with any other utilities.

If you plan to keep XP in a single partition and actually use it, 6Gb is pretty small.

 

XP gleefully wiped my linux partitions...

But maybe because they were functional, and not been ?partially? written over by a DOS fdisk.

When in doubt, zero it out! GWSCAN !

 

no luck

thanks for the replies
tried fdisk /mbr with no luck same error occurs
hogtrader, using WinME bootdisk, MS took out the /s function
any other suggestions are welcome
thanks again
NewXP